the company says it thinks demand for commodities, especially energy, will continue to grow. that could help offset the increased difficulty mining companies are having trying to find new projects in regions outside the u.s. and with interest rates currently at historic lows, the timing was right to ink the two deals. diane eastabrook, "n.b.r.," chicago. >> tom: daniel rohr is a metals and mining analyst from morningstar and joins us from chicago. dan, how unique of a deal is this in the u.s. to have mining and energy drilling all in the same company? >> it is very unusual, forthe p. decades, ago, however, we had seen a lot of the oil majors, folks like amco, with exposure to mining as well. this is an animal we haven't seen in quite sometime in the u.s. >> tom: what drove the deal for freport, why did it want to go outside its expertise mining, that was two generations of leaders ago. why now? >> yeah. i'm still struggling with the underlying strategic rationale for this deal. judging by the stock market, i can't see a clear rationale as far as why they did this. what manage